But, after all, as it was not merely with a view to supply the want of a complete History of the Popes, that I formerly undertook so laborious a task; neither is it now with that view alone I resume it. What I proposed to myself, when I first undertook it, I have said already; but, being convinced that I laboured in vain, and convinced by such evidence as the strongest prejudice could not withstand, I thought it a duty owing to truth, to set it forth to others in the same irresistible light; and to defend, at least with as much zeal, the best of causes, as I had done the worst. A disloyal subject, who had taken up arms against his lawful Sovereign, would not be thought intirely to comply with his duty, by only laying them down: he ought, if actuated by a true spirit of loyalty, and truly convinced of the badness of his cause, to range himself under the banners of his injured Lord, and devote to his service and defence the sword he had drawn against him. By a like obligation, a writer, who has, even ignorantly, combated truth, is bound, not only to lay down his pen, as soon as he finds himself engaged in a bad cause, but, when occasion offers, to turn against error in favour of truth the very weapon he had employed against truth in favour of error. But to give the reader some account of the History itself, and the method I have pursued in delivering it: I have intituled it, _The History of the Popes_; but might as well have styled it, _The History of Popery_; since it not only contains an account of the Lives and Actions of the Popes, but of every _Popish_ tenet; when, by whom, on what occasion, and to serve what purpose, each of them was broached; those more especially which relate to the Pope as _Christ’s Vicar upon earth_, as _the Supreme Head of the Church_, as _an Infallible Guide to salvation_; for these are the prerogatives he claims, as entailed upon, and inseparable from the _Roman_ See. But that no such doctrines were known in the first and purest ages of Christianity; that the Bishop of _Rome_ was then, nay, and thought himself, upon the level with other Bishops; that the Catholic Church acknowleged no power, authority, or jurisdiction in the Bishop of _Rome_, but what was common to him with all other Bishops, will appear so plain from the following History, that I can hardly conceive it possible for any man, however prejudiced in favour of the _Papal Power_, and _Popish Religion_, to peruse it without abjuring the one and the other: I am but too well apprised of the strength of prejudice; but, strong as it is, it can never be proof against plain matter of fact. For who can believe, for instance, in the Pope’s Infallibility, who can help looking upon such an article of belief as the grossest affront that ever was offered to human understanding, when he reads of a _Liberius_ admitting and signing the _Arian_ creed, or confession of faith, declared heretical by all his Successors; of an _Honorius_ condemned by the Fathers of the sixth